Reading Classics of Psychology. «Don't we all?» said Frazier
«Don't we all?» said Frazier. «Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way».
«How do you build up a tolerance to an annoying situation?* I said.
«Oh, for example, by having the children «take» a more and more painful shock, or drink cocoa with less and less sugar in it until a bitter concoction can be savored without a bitter face».
«But jealousy or envy — you can't administer them in graded doses*, I said.
«And why not? Remember, we control the social environment, too, at this age. That's why we get our ethical training in early. Take this case. A group of children arrive home after a long walk tired and hungry. They're expecting supper; they find, instead, that it's time for a lesson in self-control: they must stand for five minutes in front of steaming bowls of soup.
«The assignment is accepted like a problem in arithmetic. Any groaning or complaining is a wrong answer. Instead, the children begin at once to work upon themselves to avoid any unhappiness during the delay. One of them may make a joke of it. We encourage a sense of humor as a good way of not taking an annoyance seriously. The joke won't be much, according to adult standards — perhaps the child will simply pretend to empty the bowl of soup into his upturned mouth. Another may start a song with many verses. The rest join in at once, for they've learned that it's a good way to make time pass*.
Frazier glanced uneasily at Castle, who was not to bo appeased.
«That also strikes you as a form of torture, Mr. Сан ■ tie?* he asked.
♦I'd rather be put on the rack*, said Castle.
«Then you have by no means had the thorough training I supposed. You can't imagine how lightly the children take such an experience. It's a rather severe biological frustration, for the children are tired and hungry and they must stand and look at food; but it's passed off as lightly as a five-minute delay at curtain time. We regard it as a fairly elementary test. Much more difficult problems follow*.
«I suspected as much*, muttered Castle.
«In a later stage we forbid all social devices. No songs, no jokes — merely silence. Each child is forced back upon his own resources—a very important step*.
♦I should think so», I said. « And how do you know it's successful? You might produce a lot of silently resentful chidren. It's certainly a dangerous stage*.
«It is, and we follow each child carefully. If he hasn't picked up the necessary techniques, we start back a little. A still more advanced stage* — Frazier glanced again lit Castle, who stirred uneasily — «brings me to my point. When it's time to sit down to the soup, the children count Off — heads and tails. Then a coin is tossed and if it comes Up heads, the «heads» sit down and eat. The «tails» remain standing for another five minutes*.
Castle groaned.
♦ And you call that envy?* I asked.
♦ Perhaps not exactly*, said Frazier. «At least there's ttldotn any aggression against the lucky ones. The emotion, if any, is directed against Lady Luck herself, "•must the toss of the coin. That, in itself, is a lesson wmi.li learning, for it's the only direction in which emo-i inn has a surviving chance to be useful. And resentment tuwnrd things in general, while perhaps just as silly as personal aggression, is more easily controlled. Its expression is not socially objectionable*.
Frazier looked nervously from one of us to the other. He seemed to be trying to discover whether we shared Castle's prejudice. I began to realize, also, that he had not really wanted to tell this story. He was vulnerable. He was treading on sanctified ground, and I was pretty sure he had not established the value of most of these practices in an experimental fashion. He could scarcely have done so in the short space of ten years. He was working on faith, and it bothered him.
I tried to bolster his confidence by reminding him that he had a professional colleague among his listeners. «May you not inadvertently teach your children some of the very emotions you're trying to eliminate?* I said. «What'sthe effect, for example, of finding the anticipation of a warm supper suddenly thwarted? Doesn't that eventually lead to feelings of uncertainty, or even anxiety?*
«It might. We had to discover how often our lessons could be safely administered. But all our schedules are worked out experimentally. We watch for undesired consequences just as any scientist watches for disrupting factors in his experiments.
«After all, it's a simple and sensible program*, he went on in a tone of appeasement. « We set up a system of gradually increasing annoyances and frustrations against a background of complete serenity. An easy environment is made more and more difficult as the children acquire the capacity to adjust*.
«But why?* said Castle. «Why these deliberate unpleasantnesses—to put it mildly? I must say I think you and your friend Simmons are really very subtle sadists*.
«You»ve reversed your position, Mr. Castle*, said Frazier in a sudden flash of anger with which I rather syn i pathized. Castle was calling names, and he was also being unaccountably and perhaps intentionally obtuse. «A while ago you accused me of breeding a race of softies », Frazier continued. «Now you object to toughening them up. But what you don't understand is that these potentially unhappy situations are never very annoying. Our schedules make sure of that. You wouldn't understand, however, because you're not so far advanced as our children*. Castle grew black.
«But what do your children get out of it?» he insisted, apparently trying to press some vague advantage in Frazier's anger.
«What do they get out of it!» exclaimed Frazier, his eyes flashing with a sort of helpless contempt. His lips curled and he dropped his head to look at his fingers, which were crushing a few blades of grass.
«They must get happiness and freedom and strength*, I said, putting myself in a ridiculous position in attempting to make peace.
«They don't sound happy or free to me, standing in Front of bowls of Forbidden Soup*, said Castle, answer-ing me parenthetically while continuing to stare at Frazier.
«If I must spell it out*, Frazier began with a deep sigh, ♦ what they get is escape from the petty emotions which cat the heart out of the unprepared. They get the satisfaction of pleasant and profitable social relations on a •(ale almost undreamed of in the world at large. They get immeasurably increased efficiency, because they can •lick to a job without suffering the aches and pains which Boon beset most of us. They get new horizons, for they iru spared the emotions characteristic of frustration and failure. They get—»His eyes searched the branches of i lie trees. «Is that enough?*, he said at last.
«And the community must gain their loyalty », I said, «when they discover the fears and jealousies and diffidences in the world at large».
«Fm glad you put it that way», said Frazier. «You might have said that they must feel superior to the miserable products of our public schools. But we»re at pains to keep any feeling of superiority or contempt under control, too. Having suffered most acutely from it myself, I put the subject first on our agenda. We carefully avoid any joy in a personal triumph which means the personal failure of somebody else. We take no pleasure in the sophistical, the disputative, the dialectical*. He threw a vicious glance at Castle. «We don't use the motive of domination, because we are always thinking of the whole group. We could motivate a few geniuses that way—it was certainly my own motivation—but we'd sacrifice some of the happiness of everyone else. Triumph over nature and over oneself, yes. But over others, never*.
« You've taken the mainspring out of the watch*, said Castle flatly.
«That's an experimental question, Mr. Castle, and you have the wrong answer*.
Frazier was making no effort to conceal his feeling. If he had been riding Castle, he was now using his spurs. Perhaps he sensed that the rest of us had come round and that he could change his tactics with a single holdout. But it was more than strategy, it was genuine feeling. Castle's undeviating skepticism was a growing frustration.
«Are your techniques really so very new?* I said hurriedly. « What about the primitive practice of submitting a boy to various tortures before granting him a place among adults? What about the disciplinary techniques of Puritanism? Or of the modern school, for that matter? »
' «In one sense you're right*, said Frazier. «And I think you've nicely answered Mr. Castle's tender concern for our little ones. The unhappinesses we deliberately impose are far milder than the normal unhappinesses from which we offer protection. Even at the height of our ethical training, the unhappiness is ridiculously trivial—to the well-trained child.
■ «But there's a world of difference in the way we use these annoyances*, he continued. «For one thing, we don't punish. We never administer an unpleasantness in the hope of repressing or eliminating undesirable behavior. But there's another difference. In most cultures the child meets up with annoyances and reverses of uncontrolled magnitude. Some are imposed in the name of discipline by persons in authority. Some, like hazings, are condoned though not authorized. Others are merely accidental. No one cares to, or is able to, prevent them.
«We all know what happens. A few hardy children emerge, particularly those who have got their unhappiness in doses that could be swallowed. They become brave men. Others become sadists or masochists of varying degrees of pathology. Not having conquered a painful environment, they become preoccupied with pain and make a devious art of it. Others submit—and hope to inherit the earth. The rest—the cravens, the cowards—live In fear for the rest of their lives. And that's only a single field — the reaction to pain. I could cite a dozen parallel cases. The optimist and the pessimist, the contented and the disgruntled, the loved and the unloved, the ambitious and the discouraged — these are only the extreme products of a miserable system.
'i «Traditional practices are admittedly better than nothing*, Frazier went on. «Spartan or Puritan—no one can question the occasional happy result. But the whole system rests upon the wasteful principle of selection. The English public school of the nineteenth century produced brave men—by setting up almost insurmountable barriers and making the most of the few who came over. But selection isn't education. Its crops of brave men will always be small, and the waste enormous. Like all primitive principles, selection serves in place of education only through a profligate use of material. Multiply extravagantly and select with rigor. Its the philosophy of the «big litter* as an alternative to good child hygiene.
«In Walden two we have a different objective. We make every man a brave man. They all come over the barriers. Some require more preparation than others, but they all come over. The traditional use of adversity is to select the strong. We control adversity to build strength. And we do it deliberately, no matter how sadistic Mr. Castle may think us, in order to prepare for adversities which are beyond control. Our children eventually experience the «heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to». It would be the cruelest possible practice to protect them as long as possible, especially when we could protect them so well».